I could see him in the side mirror. He hadn’t moved but was watching us drive down the block. The sun shining through the trees behind him left his face in shadow.
“Maybe he didn’t recognize you. He isn’t trying to follow us,” Jude offered as I shuddered once. I hated the helpless fear that had gripped me when I met Devlin’s cold blue eyes.
“No. I’m pretty sure he already knows how to find me.”
A few minutes later, my cellphone rang. The same Chicago phone number. Well, that answered that, I thought, sending the call to voicemail. It rang again immediately, and I set the ringer to silent. A few minutes later, I checked my messages. Only one wasn’t an instant hang up. There were a few seconds of low laughter before the call disconnected.
I debated hard during the short distance back to the hotel. I didn’t want to call Gabe, especially after how he’d left things the day before, but Devlin was the whole reason I was in this and catching him was Gabe’s endgame.
Now, I knew were Devlin was. This could all be over in a hurry, and I had no reason for hesitation. In front of the St. Clair, I thanked Jude for carting me around and paid him, adding a hefty tip.
“Be careful,” Jude admonished, handing me his card. “And call me if you need a ride anywhere else.” I thanked him, and he waved, smiling briefly before the bus puttered away from the curb.
I noted the same businessman I’d seen earlier sitting in the lobby when I entered the hotel. He was scowling but didn’t look up at me as I passed, but it seemed unlikely that he’d still be in the same spot, reading the same newspaper after all this time, and it made me feel a little better.
The guy was likely some sort of protection arranged by Gabe and had likely gotten in trouble after I’d blown past him earlier. Oops. That didn’t mean Gabe was any less of an asshole, but I appreciated the feeling of security. I had fancied myself a badass a couple of short weeks ago, but right now, I was rattled.
I headed up to my room and stiffened my spine, dialing Gabriel’s number on the way.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Gabe
If my phone rang one more time, I was going to explode.
Nonstop, all day crises had popped up, and today would officially go down in the books as a total clusterfuck.
My phone rang.
I gritted my teeth. It was Olivia, and I didn’t have time to deal with her. “Hello,” I barked.
“I found Devlin.”
The words felt like a punch.
“Hold on.” I pushed back from the conference room table, which we’d set up as a sort of command center after the call had come from the fire department earlier in the day, letting me know another Ainsley property had gone up in flames. I stepped out in the hallway, closing the door behind me, and cutting off the chatter of a dozen voices. “You found Devlin? Through what, the research stuff?”
I heard her take a deep breath. “No. I found where he’s staying. I saw him.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” The ice in my gut at the thought of her anywhere near Cunningham infuriated me. “I thought you were working from the hotel room. Unless he was in the lobby, there’s no way you should have seen him.”
“I got my hands on a list of addresses, and since three of them were nearby, I called for a ride and went to check them out.”
Her voice was clipped, annoyed even, but I could hear something simmering beneath the surface. Fear? “Tell me you didn’t confront him.”
“No! I’m not stupid. Jesus, Gabe.”
“He saw you.” I said it flatly and walked quickly to my office. I needed to move, now, before Devlin did.
“He saw me,” she admitted.
“Dammit, for someone who claims they’re not stupid, that was an idiotic thing to do. You realize, don’t you, that you’re the first person to have laid eyes on him since he took off, and now that he knows he’s been made, he’s going to bolt again!”
“Gabe—”
“Get to my penthouse. Now. There’s a security guard in the lobby of the hotel who will take you there.” I grabbed a pen and paper from my desk. “And I need the address where you saw him.”
“I’m not going to your place!” Olivia yelled the words, and I could tell she was just as pissed off as I was. Too bad.
“The hotel’s not safe enough. The address. Now.”
She rattled off a place on Erie Street. “I’m staying here.” Her voice was mutinous, and I could picture her face, that stubborn chin set in a glare I was getting to know very well. I didn’t care.
My office door opened without warning, and Chester poked his head in, his weathered face creased in a fierce scowl. This was the last possible thing I needed. I held up a hand over my phone. “Hold on a sec,” I growled at him, pointing to a chair by my desk. “If you want to light into me, you’re going to have to get in line.”
Muttering under his breath, the steel-toed work boots he still wore, even though he hadn’t been on a job site in years, clunked as he crossed the room and sat down.
“Olivia, I need to go. If you’re not down in the lobby in five minutes, ready to leave, I’m going to come over there and drag your ass out, and you won’t like what happens next.” I hung up on her protests, itching to go, to get to Devlin. But I couldn’t.
“Boy, what in hellfire is going on?” Grandpa wasted no time on pleasantries and shoved himself to his feet. “I just heard it on the TV that another Ainsley building burned. They’re dredging up the other fire, even the trial, all over again. Now, you’re going to tell me what’s happening, right now. I don’t want any of the watered-down bullshit you’ve been trying to pawn me off with lately, either.” He slammed a fist down on my desk in emphasis, and I had an inspiration.
“You’re right, Gramps. I have a situation here, and I need your help.” Some of the dark red, angry color in his face eased, and I kept my voice as calm as I could, not wanting him to stroke out on my office floor. “The woman I was just talking to, Olivia Redmond, is Cunningham’s niece. She found Devlin, but he knows who she is, and he saw her drive by his place. I need you to take care of her until I can get to her.”
“She the one you were just talking to on the phone when I came in here? Jeezus, kid, didn’t I teach you anything? You gotta have finesse with a woman. Sweet talk her a little. You can’t just threaten her like you would with one of your damned employees. Hell, if I’d ever talked to your grandma that way, she’d have left me for the garbageman.”
“I don’t threaten—” I wanted to bang my head into the desk, but I pinched the bridge of my nose and took a deep breath instead. “I really need you to do this for me. Can you take care of her?”
My grandpa straightened his narrow shoulders, his suspenders pulling his baggy khakis up farther on his lanky frame. “The day I can’t take care of a woman, boy….”
Olivia and my grandpa would either hate each other on sight or turn into allies and gang up on me. Either way, if I wanted to get back to the conference room anytime in the next hour or so, this was the quickest way to do it.
“She’s staying at the St. Clair. I told her to get a ride to my place with a security guard I’ve got there, but I don’t think she’ll do it. If you can go over there, I’ll call ahead and they’ll send you on up to her room. Be careful, though — she’s stubborn.”
“I can handle her,” Chester promised, his chin going up as he thumbed the suspenders. “We Ainsleys used to be known for our charm with the ladies. I think that particular attribute skipped a generation, though.” He headed for the door but stopped with his hand on the knob. “Wait, what’s this about another fire?”
I summed it up as quickly as I could, practically hearing a clock ticking in my head. For every second of delay, this shitstorm was getting exponentially worse. “An office building. Thank God it was after hours and no one was hurt.”
“Faulty wiring?” Chester questioned grimly, his face folding into a scowl.
“I don’t know. Preliminary reports from
the fire scene investigator are pointing to arson, but things are still too hot for him to do a full investigation.”
I’d answered honestly but wondered to myself if I’d have told him if the cause had been faulty wiring. I wasn’t prepared to see that look of disappointment on his face again. I’d experienced enough of that to last me a lifetime.
After Chester left, I called the Chicago PD and spoke to the detective that was handling the case on the Cunninghams. After Devlin disappeared, they’d labeled him a person of interest. Once we’d started to uncover missing money, money that wasn’t accounted for in Joel’s take, they’d been able to pin charges on him. I quickly told him the address Olivia had given me and he said he’d send a car over immediately. I wanted to go myself, but I needed to handle things here. I had a press conference scheduled in less than a half-hour.
I didn’t think they’d find him. In fact, I knew in my gut they wouldn’t. But this was the last time I was taking things through the proper channels. The next time he showed his face in Chicago, that fucker was mine and mine alone. He’d pay for everything, including what he’d done to Liv.
***
Things were no less chaotic in the conference room as they had been when I’d left. Brian, still sniffling and red-eyed, was in a heated argument with Karyn, my PR head over the phrasing in the statement I was supposed to give.
I’d been back in the room for about thirty seconds, answering questions from the IT guys before Bridget, who handled our front desk, paged to let me know that reporters were showing up early with their crews, wanting to set up.
I grabbed the statement and ordered Brian to make sure the room we’d set up was ready. I sent Karyn out to greet everyone and make nice. I left everyone else working on the problem of investigating buildings that Devlin had been working on and went back to my office to review the statement Brian and Karyn had drafted and to make my own changes.
Twelve minutes later, I was in the lion’s den. Cameras set up, lighting, reporters perched on the edges of folding chairs with outstretched mikes, trying to get the best possible sound bites. Frustration bubbled beneath my calm surface. I thought that I was finished running these gauntlets when Joel was led off in cuffs, but this was another grudge to lay at the Cunningham’s feet. It was beginning to feel like I’d never get back to a job site again.
I reached the head of the room and cleared my throat, straightening my cuffs, and bringing a hush to the room as eyes turned toward me.
“Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for coming. I’ve invited you here to give a statement on recent events that have taken place. As you are all undoubtedly aware,” I began wryly, since most local stations had been running the story all day, “there has been a fire in one of our buildings in West Chicago. The fire broke out sometime during the night. No one was injured, though the building was a complete loss. Ainsley Holdings has already found a new location for the affected businesses and we are doing all we can to help with their relocation process. The fire department is still investigating, but preliminary reports indicate that the source was not the building’s electrical system but may in fact be the work of an arsonist.”
There was an excited murmur from the room. Arson made for far better headlines, and I didn’t think I was being disingenuous by throwing the possibility out there.
“Still, we are running thorough precautionary inspections of all existing Ainsley properties, to ensure that the safety and quality standards that we have always upheld as a company have been maintained, and in the event that we find any issues, we will provide full reports to property owners and make any necessary repairs at our company’s expense. Ainsley Holdings has earned its place as a respected member among Chicago’s area businesses and we consider ourselves fortunate to be able to employ over two thousand talented individuals within our company. Our mission hasn’t changed. We are dedicated to preserving the beauty, form, and function of our local architecture, making no distinction between the importance of affordable and attractive housing, luxurious and artistic living spaces, antique building restorations and unique and effectual office structures.”
I opened the floor to questions and braced myself. A petite brunette in a red suit, with flirtatious eyes and a calculating smile, threw the first volley. “Mr. Ainsley,” she purred. “Can you give us an update on the displaced victims of that first, near-fatal fire?”
“Yes. Everyone involved has been provided with alternate housing. The two elderly victims have been released from the hospital with relatively minor injuries, and we’ve provided nursing care to see to any of their needs while they recuperate. The young girl who suffered from smoke inhalation has fully recovered, and all hospital costs or expenses incurred by her family or any others involved in the apartment fire have been taken care of.”
I wasn’t telling her anything she didn’t already know. I’d seen her interviewing one of those affected families just this morning asking leading questions about lawsuits, and she’d received exactly the same answer from them that I’d just given her. In fact, none of the people involved had anything but good things to say about the way the situation had been handled, even the relatives of the injured couple and the parents of the little girl who had been hospitalized.
Another question, this time from the back. “Do you think the arson last night was personally motivated?”
I kept my expression carefully blank. “I believe the two incidents are unrelated. And I will wait to hear the results of the investigation before making any of my own conjectures.”
I answered a few more questions and then politely extricated myself from the situation. I had reached the furthest limits of my patience with the entire day, and it wasn’t over yet. I should have been more concerned with Devlin’s whereabouts, but more pressing was the need to know that Olivia was safe and out of his reach. And if she wasn’t on her way to my penthouse or already there, God help her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Liv
This was bullshit. I was going home.
I was throwing the rest of my things into my backpack when there was a knock at my door. I froze, terrified for a moment and then furious at myself for reacting that way. Devlin was already back in my head, taking up unwanted real estate.
I checked the peephole in the door, not sure whether to expect the security guy from downstairs or Devlin himself, but there was an elderly man outside in the hallway. Tall, shoulders just slightly stooped, in a long-sleeved red plaid shirt and khaki pants. Not a threat.
Still, I opened the door cautiously.
The man gave me a wide smile, one I recognized as belonging on a much younger face, and his silver eyes twinkled in a way his grandson’s did not. “You must be Olivia Redmond,” he said gruffly, holding out his hand. “Chester Ainsley. My Gabe is a damned idiot for speaking to you the way he did earlier. I can promise you that’s not how I raised him.”
I shook his hand, his palm broad and callused, and gave him a small smile in return. “I can agree with that statement. Your grandson is most definitely an idiot.”
He chuckled and gestured to my backpack. “You ready to leave?”
“Yes, I’m leaving, but I’m not going to Gabe’s place. I’m going back to Detroit.”
He frowned and shook his head, his thumbs moving to the suspenders he wore down his chest. “I do understand your reasoning. But you know that if you go now, you’ll be letting Gabe win, don’t you?”
“I’m not interested in winning or losing—”
“Not enough damned people stand up to the boy,” Chester interrupted staunchly, the creases of his face settling into an even deeper frown.
Hearing Gabe referred to as a boy made me grin a little. The powerful, sexy, infuriating man I’d come to know would probably grind his teeth if he knew how his grandpa was portraying him.
Chester must have taken my smile as an agreement because he took my backpack from me, slinging it over his shoulder. “Come back to his place with me, so we can both be
a burr in his ass, if for no other reason.”
He held out an arm in a courtly, old-fashioned gesture, and after only a moment of hesitation, I took it, one stubborn soul recognizing another. Chester wouldn’t give up, but I was betting that he was perfectly capable of making Gabriel’s life miserable, and I might as well help him out and see this thing through.
Going back to Detroit now would be tantamount to running away, from both Gabe and Devlin, and as I’d learned, running away didn’t solve anything. It only gave you a false sense of security until your past caught up with you again. Not that the knowledge kept me from wanting to take to my heels as fast as I could.
In the lobby, Chester waved off the “businessman” who was on his cell phone by the reception desk. He nodded at us, as he spoke to someone on the other end. “How did Gabe end up sending you to pick me up?” I asked as Chester held open the passenger-side door of a nice, newer-model Jeep Wrangler.
“I stopped by his office,” Chester grumbled, climbing into the driver’s seat. “I saw on the news that there had been another fire and figured enough is enough. The boy thinks he’s protecting me by not letting me get involved in this mess, but he doesn’t realize that finding this shit out on the morning news is a helluva lot more stressful. Pardon my language.”
“Another fire?” I instantly thought of the children I’d seen playing in the yard of the housing projects I’d driven past earlier in the day.
“Office building last night. No one was hurt.” Chester threw the Jeep in gear and pulled out into traffic, heedless of the blaring horns of irate drivers. I was glad we only had a short distance to go, but my fingernails dug into the leather seat anyway. “This one they think is arson.”
“Hold on,” I said, my voice ending on a high note since he was rocketing around a corner, uncaring of or not noticing the yellow light above him. “You went to Gabe’s office, and he sent you to get me?”
Claiming My Vengeance Page 15